DIY Kombucha

Kombucha is a soft drink that's sweeping the country ... or at least the health food stores in urban cities. Kombucha is basically fermented tea, and is made with a gross organism called a Scoby (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast). Although no clinical trials have been performed, Kombucha drinkers report more robust immune systems, sharper eyesight, increased energy and clear skin as some of the benefits. At The Lab, we've been having fun making Kombucha for the past few months, and wanted to share the process with you here. Check it out...

First we brewed tea in large gallon jugs (photo above). Using black tea is recommended. It's good to label the jars if you use different types of tea so that you can remember what's what.


We then add sugar and stir with a wooden spoon. We like to use around 3/4 cup of refined white sugar. Looking around the web, you'll find that other sugars don't work as well. You can use as little as 1/2 cup and as much as 1 1/2 cups. It's a matter of taste.

Next we add one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. This serves as a starter to get the process moving. If you have some actual kombucha lying around, you can use a cup or so of that instead.

This is the scoby (scoby one kanobi). When you brew kombucha, these suckers replicate. So we have some extras that need homes.

Put the scoby in the bucket. By the way, Kombucha can get contaminated if your work surfaces and hands are not completely sterilized. We like to use vinegar and even some kombucha itself to clean things up.

We cover the jar with a piece of porous t-shirt material and let it sit for one week.

In that time, the scoby grows to fill up the whole diameter of the jar. It is alive. Be prepared.

When we're ready to bottle, we take out the scoby

And check out how you can peel off a skin, which is essentially a second scoby

We pour ours into 16oz bottles. They say that you should try to drink around 4-8 ounces per day. It's not good to drink an entire 16oz bottle in one sitting.

Then we add flavorings, like ginger below. We've played with carrot, turmeric, papaya, blueberries (whole and juiced), apple, orange, beet juice, etc...

Once bottled, you have to let the bottles sit for another 5 days for the secondary fermentation process that adds the fizz. After that, they're ready for refrigeration and drinking.